Lilac
by Spicas
Summary: Looking back, she'll realize this is the moment it happened. When this stopped being nothing and it started being something. Prequel to Colors.


_A/N: This is sort of a prequel to my other story, already completed, Colors. I had some of this written but left it out of that one so I decided to put it together as a one-shot but I ended up writing about 2,000 more words to go with it. This can stand just fine on its own, though. Let me know your thoughts, they make my day!_

* * *

 **Lilac**

 _You were red_

 _And you liked me because I was blue_

* * *

She doesn't remember how they've come to this — arguing and falling into bed together, or against the wall, or against a table. She doesn't know why it's become so frequent, and she hates that she misses it when the Games are over and he's back in Twelve and she's back to her usual life in the Capitol.

It doesn't mean anything, of course it doesn't. And a part of her wonders if it'll even continue when the next year comes and she goes back to Twelve to do yet another Reaping — her fourth, his nineteenth — but it does continue.

It happens again, and again, and after that again. He's always drunk, or at least tipsy; she always regrets it later, alone in her bedroom in the penthouse, when he's left. He never stays the night, and she never asks him to. They don't really have sex before the Games actually start — they always maintain certain dignity and there's always some schedule to keep when you escort the tributes around. Once they're in the arena, well…

Usually it happens after both of them dies.

In the 70th Hunger Games, they have sex after the girl dies, the same night the Games have started. It's fast and rough, and Effie hates that she likes it so much — sex with Haymitch is different from anything she's ever had in her life. Between their sweaty, naked bodies, she almost thinks they could be one and the same. Trapped in this weird attraction none of them understands.

There's an earthquake and flooding in the arena and their tribute didn't know how to swim. The sex is frantic, filled with muttered gasps and heavy breathing, one of her legs draped over his shoulder and his thumb between her legs. When it's over, it's like every other time — they catch their breaths, she excuses herself to the bathroom, and when she comes back he's not there anymore.

Except this time he stays.

He shares her cigarette and she doesn't complain of the bottle he's brought from the living room. He drinks and she watches; she smokes and he watches. It's a weird cycle, but not awkward. They don't really talk, because talking has never solved anything for them. They only observe.

That's the first time they have sex again so soon after the previous time, too. She tastes the liquor in his tongue and runs her fingers through his hair and holds his eyes in hers and she finds herself mesmerized by the grey in them — so intent, so calculating, hazy from the alcohol, bright from the sex.

Looking back, she'll realize this is the moment it happened. When this stopped being nothing and it started being something.

But this should be nothing. It means nothing.

He comes to the Capitol for the Victory Tour and they fall into a weird, complex routine that involves days of partying, arguing about sponsors even if the Games are only in six months, and hard, frantic sex every night. Every night, with his liquor and her cigarettes. They stop going for tables and walls and couches, and go straight to bed now — it's more comfortable, and it's better if they plan on doing it again later. Which they often do.

He takes her wig off for the first time the following year, and she's too tired and too tipsy and she's not yet recovered from her orgasm to deny him. She feels the grey eyes watching her every movement as she helps him unclip the wig and let her hair loose, wavy locks falling clumsily past her shoulders, and she thinks she sees, for the first time, something other than lust in his eyes.

"You're beautiful."

She thinks he's being honest, because his voice cracks and she's worried that if she says anything else, her voice will crack too — or worse. He thinks she's beautiful all on her own, without anything to help, and when he says it it might just be enough for her. The public's admiration means nothing when he says the words so softly against her ears; love from fans and strangers means nothing when he runs his fingers through her plain blonde hair and states that she smells good, and that she should look like this every day.

The slow, almost lazy sex that follows is earth shattering is its own way and she feels the walls crumble around her when they lay side by side and she can't take her eyes off him.

They're so different, Effie and Haymitch. They want different things. She isn't sure if he wants anything at all, truthfully. He drinks and forgets and the grey in his eyes are starting to spread to his hair and his soul. But he's smart and he's cunning and she has faith in him — she has more faith in him as a mentor than he has in himself, and she hates him for it, and hates herself as well.

Because this is nothing, and it means nothing.

But she has ambitions and aspirations and they don't involve spending so many years as an escort for District Twelve, of all districts. He's lazy, and claims the tributes from his home don't have enough grit to win, and she's angry, and he's angry, and she hates what this does to him every year. Every _damn_ year.

She hates that seeing him crumble every year starts getting to her, too.

She stays by Twelve. Even when she has a way out. Even when a handsome rich man proposes to her. Even when the Head Gamemaker offers her a new position.

She _stays_.

That should have been a red alert to them both, but they don't talk about it. They never talk about what they do in their night or days alone, together.

He's spilled little parts of him into her for so many years, she struggles to see what's right and what's not. In these quiet, small moments in bed, she's known him more than she's ever known anyone.

"Stop drinking," she says one early morning; the sun is rising and the light reaches his body in an almost beautiful way. They haven't bothered with a cover or a sheet. He's almost finished with the bottle. "Stop punishing yourself."

"I'll stop punishing myself when someone gets punished for real, Princess," he slurs, but it's not a jibe. He lets go of the bottle and runs a thumb over the side of her face, her jaw, her chin, stopping at her lips. She gives his thumb a kiss.

She wishes she doesn't understand what his words mean. Perhaps a few years ago she wouldn't have — but she does now, and it scares her.

The 74th Hunger Games start and she's worried she's too connected to their tributes and what they represent — she worries that she knows too much, and she worries that they'll die and she worries that they'll live.

She doesn't know what's the worst possibility anymore.

"He loves her," he tells her one night, their first in the Capitol. They have hard work ahead, and normally they wouldn't be spending the nights together, but they're drawn together somehow, and they can't stop it. She doesn't want to stop it.

His voice is so soft and it takes Effie a moment to realize he's talking about the tributes.

"One of them will die. Or both of them will," she says, even though it's unnecessary.

Haymitch nods.

"They're in opposite sides. It'll never work," he says, and she wonders if he's talking about the tributes or themselves.

"Star-crossed lovers," she straddles his lap, his hands resting comfortably on her hips. The familiarity of the move is not lost on either of them. "How sad for them."

 _How sad for us._

But Haymitch does what she's always believed him capable of. He brings back a victor.

Not one, but two.

And suddenly everything is more dangerous. Their escapades, their whispers, their nights together. They spend a lot of time on the roof after the children are back, and she even has his phone fixed in Twelve because — she's just so worried she won't be able to talk to him again. Ever.

He's dripped himself into her life and in her head in a way that she just knows she'll never see anything the same way again. The magazine covers, the tv specials, everything's changed. She hasn't dyed her hair a different color since he has stated that she's beautiful in her natural way, and she hasn't given any other person her time of the day, and she isn't interested in dating or anyone else, no matter who it is, and now she has fame and success and she realizes this isn't enough for her, will _never_ be enough for her.

The Victory Tour has an edge to it that she's never thought it would have, and she isn't sure what to do with herself when it's none of the glamourous stuff she's always wanted and seen before. He gets more careful with her, and they barely talk until they're back in the Capitol, up in the roof where no one can hear them.

"Are we going to be alright, Haymitch?" she asks on their first night there. The presidential ball will be held on the next day.

"Why wouldn't we be?" there's a glint in his eyes she's never seen before. It's challenging. It worries her.

She wonders if he trusts her at all.

When the Quarter Quell is announced, she holds herself high through her shock — she's at a party, and it's only until it's very early in the morning that she's back in her brand new, fancy apartment in the City Circle, that she allows herself to think of him.

She dials his number automatically, and he answers in a way that she knows he probably hasn't slept yet either.

"Haymitch?" there's silence. "Are you okay?"

"Just fine, Sweetheart. Always thought you were gonna be the death of me," he answers after a moment. "You?"

She starts crying them. Very quietly, but she knows he's able to tell.

"I'm just sad we won't be able to do the wedding now," she says, and she can imagine his soft smile from so many miles away.

When Reaping Day arrives and Peeta volunteers in his place, she can't hold it together for long — they break yet another rule of not being involved in the train with the tributes, and the sex is desperate and overwhelming, and she tries hard not to cry when he holds her afterwards.

"I won't be the death of you," she whispers against his skin. "I'm so relieved."

"I'm still not sure about that, Princess," he whispers back, and she can't tell if he's joking or not.

They barely see each other in the Capitol — he's full of meetings, she's busy hunting sponsors and making sure the children are well cared for. She gets them golden tokens and holds Haymitch's wrist when they have sex that night, still holds onto it when she falls asleep.

He's gone when she wakes up.

They have a fight when she notices Finnick wearing the golden bangle she's chosen specifically for him.

"Don't I mean anything to you?" she asks, and it's the nerves, and the concern, and they haven't really been talking, not like before, and she's worries he's slipping through her fingers for real now.

"I don't have time for this," he says — he's about to leave for a meeting she doesn't truly know about, and she's so angry and so disappointed.

"Aren't we a team?" she asks. "I thought we… We've been a team for so long, the two of us, and…"

"Effie. Leave it. Now."

He leaves the penthouse before she has a chance to say anything else, and when he gets back — early in the morning, she knows because she hasn't managed to sleep a wink — he doesn't go to her bedroom as he's been doing for several years now.

She refuses to cry.

He's gone for most of the next day and she isn't sure what to do with herself, when he's barely there and she's the only one in the viewing room and talking to sponsors. It's only on that night that he does catch her during dinner and convince her to join him for a drink in the roof.

He takes a drink for herself and she takes it as a peace offering of sorts and drinks it, because she stopped smoking two years ago and she likes the idea of the two of them sharing something — anything — other than sex.

"I'll get the token back," he assures her once he's told her the whole plan of getting Katniss to see Finnick as an ally. Effie doesn't ask why Haymitch suddenly trusts Finnick so much, and she doesn't ask how he knows he'll get the token back when Finnick could die in the next five minutes, for all they know.

But she accepts him back in her bed.

The next day, when the Games might very well end so soon and so suddenly, she accepts him back in her body, accepts his kisses and accepts his caresses and she thinks that maybe — just maybe — in a different universe they could be together for real. He invites her for a shower, something he's never done before, and tells her in between kisses that she has to be ready at midnight and he'll get her. They'll see each other before the end of the Games, if whatever plan he has works. She trusts him. She trusts him with her life, and the certainty of it surprises her.

"Stay alive," she whispers. These will be her last words to him in a long time.

He gives her a strained smirk. "See you on the other side, Princess."

She wears a mockingjay pin under her dress and she's kissed him in front of cameras and there are people who know they've been having an affair for years but she trusts him, because he's changed so much in her that she doesn't know who she is without him anymore, and it scares her.

His plan has flaws, and the Peacekeepers get her before Haymitch's people do.

They question her, imprison her, take off her colorful makeup and clothes and all she can think of is that her world has been looking less and less colorful as the years go by, and perhaps she was never meant to fit in Haymitch's world anyway.

* * *

 _But you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky_

 _And you decided purple just wasn't for you_


End file.
